Sarbanes-Oxley and Incentive Compensation Management

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (better known as SOX, but officially known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002) requires companies to establish and maintain internal financial controls. One of the major provisions of SOX is that systems need to provide an archive or audit trail - which is something that spreadsheets simply weren't designed to do. As a result, companies that still use Excel for their sales compensation management functions face major financial and legal exposure.